My grandmother (on my mother's side) lived in a house directly across from where the Central City Fire Department sits today. Her name to everyone else was Mary Phelps but I only knew her as "Dah-Dah." I was only six years old when she died so I don't remember a lot about her but I remember her house and how odd it seems today for someone to live there. Here's why....
Her house was a "boarding house," (a term that's hardly used today). She had spare bedrooms and she rented them out to the various railroaders from the Illinois Central Railroad. Most came from Louisville and had to spend the night when they arrived in Central City. That meant they spent half of their lives in Louisville and the other half in Central City. This house was only two blocks from the main downtown area, which was the "Wal-Mart" of those days, yet my grandmother raised her own chickens (and killed, prepared and ate them) in her back yard.
Her first husband (my grandfather by blood, who died way before I was even born) was a chap named O'Bryan (my only ties to the Irish). My mother was born in West Louisville and many of her extended family members live there today. O'Bryan's Tavern out by Diamond Lakes is owned by "Whistle" O'Bryan, one such "kin-folk." For some reason, my grandfather decided family life wasn't for him and he "leffout!" My grandmother later married the only man I knew as my grandfather (both of my paternal grandparents died while I was an infant), Jim Phelps.
We simply called him "Pa." He was the line foreman at Kentucky Utilities for many years. He usually took me "cavorting" with him on Saturday mornings to his favorite hangouts, one of which was next door to their house. It was Hubert McRoy's Gulf service station at the corner of 2nd & Morehead Streets. We'd hang out in there for an hour or so each Saturday and the older guys (they were probably in their early 40's) would give us candy and Cokes. They'd talk "grown up" stuff I didn't really understand but I enjoyed the "goodies."
My grandfather always drove the KU "Company Truck" home and he'd let us play both in it and on it. It was a lot of fun climbing in the bed and sitting in the cab pretending to shift gears and drive it. He also owned a big ol' Packard with rear doors that opened backwards. They call them "suicide doors" today. If you ever opened one going down the road, the wind would catch behind it and nearly tear it off. I know this because one day I couldn't stand the temptation and did just that. That was the only time I remember my Grandpa getting mad at me.
The lot directly next door to her house (where the Tastee-Freeze was built later) was a gravel parking lot and the bus lines of that day parked a couple of busses there when they weren't on the road. These were the old "Flxible" brand busses (it was pronounced "Flexible" but for some reason they decided the "e" wasn't important and they left it out). They had the rounded rear tail which housed the motor. The actual bus station was over by where Carpet Decorators now sits. The telephone office was next door. I remember playing in my grandmother's yard (as small as it was) and seeing the busses stopping in front of the station to pick up and drop off passengers. This was a fairly common mode of travel in those days as well as the forerunner to UPS. For convenience, there was a cab station over there too and Central City actually had about three full time cabs. To my knowledge, we have none now and we don't have any bus service either. I don't know if this is a step forward or backward (can it be we're all too prosperous to need these things?). The bus station eventually moved up to a building on Broad Street across from First Methodist Church. As a former paperboy, we generally followed the bus station because it was the "drop off" point for our newspapers.
Back to my Grandmother's house...my brother and I didn't spend a lot of "nights" there...our visits were mostly for the day. Since my mother was always a "stay at home" mom, she didn't require a lot of babysitting services. Sometimes she might have had a doctor's appointment or something she didn't want to "drag" us along to, so our grandmother would babysit us at her house for a couple of hours. Otherwise, the time we spent there was with one or both parents present.
I remember one particular weekend when Mom & Dad went to Louisville to visit his sister and her husband who lived there at the time. They left my brother and I with our grandmother overnight. They took the train (yep, we had passenger trains here then and since Dad worked on the railroad, we got to ride 'em free), leaving on Saturday and returning on Sunday. Somehow, my brother and I, who were either pre-school or barely in school at the time migrated to the front bedroom where we encountered a cigarette lighter. Being inquisitive, we wanted to see it work, so we "hunkered" down between the bed and the front wall and flipped the lever until it struck. Unfortunately, the bedspread was very close to the flame and it caught fire....real quick, and it spread all over the bed....real quick. This was about the time that my grandmother was cooking breakfast and we could hear her calling us to come and eat. Hoping the fire would magically extinguish itself, we innocently went into the kitchen like nothing was happening. The fire was blazing pretty good by this time and my grandmother smelled smoke. Looking around the kitchen, she could see nothing was burning there so she set out towards the bedroom. I quickly ran out the back door and went and hid up behind the garage.
When my grandmother (and my aunt and my cousin and her husband) got to the front of the house, the entire bedroom was ablaze. Fortunately, she lived directly across the street from the fire department so they got there pretty quickly and got the fire out. I was "shakin' in my shoes" up behind the garage. My cousin's husband came into the garage and called my name. Knowing I couldn't hide out any longer, I answered him and he gathered me up and drug me into the living room to "face the music." I don't remember much after that, but I don't think I got much punishment (at least nothing like I deserved). Mom & Dad returned that afternoon and I sort of expected a "mortal beating," but it never happened. I'm sure if she hadn't lived across from the fire department it would have been much worse. The house would have burnt completely down. It taught me a lesson about playing with lighters though as nothing like that ever happened again.
My aunt Ruby (she was mentioned in a previous blog) also lived in the house at the time. Occasionally it was her job to go to the back yard and gather up a chicken for Sunday Dinner. I didn't witness this but my Mother told me the story that one morning "Dah Dah" sent her out to kill a chicken. There was an old stump in the back yard that doubled as a "chopping block." It had an axe sticking in it at all times so no one ever had to look for one. Ruby went out back, chased and finally caught a chicken and holding it by the neck, placed it on the block. She picked up the axe and proceeded to cut off the bird's head but since she didn't have the stomach to actually watch such an action, at the last second just before the axe struck, she shut her eyes. This made her miss the poor bird's head but she managed to cut off it's beak (but not it's tongue).
Well, you can imagine the sight when she let go of the panicked bird, and it ran around the fenced in back yard with no beak but with it's tongue wiggling like a red worm stuck to it's face. It wasn't a pretty sight. Fortunately, "Dah Dah" managed to recapture the poor bird and finish the job.
I still find it hard to believe that my Grandmother lived in town, in fact, directly across from the City Building and it still seemed like we were in the country when we were at her house.
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